


Mutiny

by hauntedpoem



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (in a snippet), Activism, Alternate Universe, Bigotry, Body Shaming, Controversial relationship, Cousin Incest, Feminism, Gen, Gender Inequality, Homosexuality, Marital Problems, Politics, Rebellion, Regrets, Secret Relationship, Sexism, The amazing sons of Feanor, indoctrinated people, ob-gyn, teenage Artanis, the 50s, this fic deals with all of this and tries to portray the struggle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 04:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10586787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpoem/pseuds/hauntedpoem
Summary: She has to learn it when she's still young. This is the Finwëan way. Women get replaced- she is always reminded of her uncle’s deceased mother. Then why cannot she accept such fate? It would be easier if the fire of rebellion could be extinguished at command.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have to thank TheMirkyKing for encouraging me on this one.  
> I still have qualms about setting this right from a historical POV.  
> -  
> Keep being angry at injustice, folks!

It's the mid-fifties and no self-respecting descendant of Finwë should pass the opportunity to protest in the name of freedom and social justice. Maybe even gender equality or so Artanis thinks.

 

She is one of those who is always ready for change, ready to initiate it, to be on the front lines, holding the flag and shouting the loudest. She knows she's capable and strong, she knows she is as good as any Finwëan. In their eyes shines their strength of will. They are able to move mountains when they put their minds to it, that’s their credo.

 

There is something that holds her back, however, something that throws her in the muddy trenches without any leverage - she's a woman now and she has a duty to fulfil, or so her mother keeps telling her. She's to learn the art of staying behind the curtains and doing all the work for which someone else is going to be credited. She has to learn it when she's still young. This is the Finwëan way. Women get replaced- she is always reminded of her uncle’s deceased mother. Then why cannot she accept such fate? It would be easier if the fire of rebellion could be extinguished at command.

 

Artanis feels like a puppet, sometimes, and it’s her grandfather that drives this whole charade with an invisible hand. She knows. And it is this thought that makes her cry in front of the huge, embellished mirror every day since then.

 

 First, they made her give up fencing and double her ballet classes, then they nicely asked her to diminish her equitation sessions- at first because her mother noticed her feminine form getting leaner and more muscular and secondly because it might harm her lady parts- which was absurd in itself. Her lady parts! That's what her dear mother said to her in the privacy of her room.

The madness didn't stop there because she was practically pushed through the ob-gyn's door and abandoned there with a strange looking woman and her assistant, both ending up ogling her privates with clinical detachment.

 

It made her feel alien like she was "less-than" when the assistant came in and marvelled at her bush while putting on the gloves. "You should get that trimmed down, hon."

Artanis felt anger and after the consultation, just deep shame.

 

Then they took her measurements, height and weight and even palmed her breasts. "For nodules, dear," the doctor assured her.

"Any swelling and pain before menstruating?"

Artanis answered with a plain "No, ma'am."Just to get it over with.

 

Afterwards, she found herself walking aimlessly in the cold autumn air, self conscious about her short skirt getting blown by the wind, self-conscious about her long, naked legs covered in small bruises and scratches. Covered with hair, blond, almost invisible, except to the doctor’s eye.

Self-conscious about how unfeminine she was wearing scruffy tennis shoes, instead of a nice pair of heels and nylon tights.

 

I am too tall, she insisted on thinking so that her thoughts would detract from analysing the idea of body hair which the assistant, a woman past her thirties wearing a strident rouge lipstick, thought of as absolutely abhorrent. To her, gonorrhoea was a better option than having hair on other parts than your head. Even though it's blond! It made Artanis cringe but she was confused by what she learned. Nothing medical, nothing of actual interest - she read about the human body from one of the medical books in the library.  Here, she learned about being shamed for who she was.

Today, she learned about social etiquette and she got tips for buying a razor."To slit my wrists, perhaps!"

 

She knew she did not feel right about it but for some stupid reason, there was a need, deeper than her own conviction, a need to align with this current for it was very strong. Generations of women pushing and pulling and bickering about what other women should do. Men, always detached, accepting of this madness. They were like kittens with a  ball of yarn, always busy and preoccupied with nothing of value, always tired and wrapped up in mundane occupations, too busy, too unprepared to notice the world changing around them, too uninvolved in politics and without a say on their behalf. They were led, like cattle, on a road full of emerald grass, to the slaughter. And they would do that to their daughters.

 

Again, she diverted her thoughts to her height, pulling the fur lapels of her too short coat about her body. Not hourglass, just a plain rectangle with small hips and wide spaced breasts. A plank, if you will, one that has bumps on it.

 

"My, my...aren't you tall for your age!?" The woman - the doctor- said. Tall for my age. What does that even mean? Now I have to be less tall, it's ridiculous! You're not pleased if I have been diagnosed as virginal as ever after the ob-gyn’s been sticking a finger into my vagina and pushing on my belly, just in case...? What for? Then the remarks about my body. Were those necessary?

My bush? My hairy legs? My armpits? Even my hair is now too long to be fashionable although they said the colour was too nice to ever be dyed. At least they liked the colour of her hair, she thought.

 

So did her uncle, although in his generic idiot-savant ways he never intended it to be more than a compliment and an interesting addition for the sake of advancing his obscure studies of light. At least her uncle, Fëanáro had not even thought that he was breaching some complicated social norm when confronted by her outraged father.

"It's just hair, Arafinwë!”.

Artanis wishes she could believe him. For a while, she too felt outraged. How dare he try and cut her hair, as if it was his right! As if he had _any_ right to any part of her body! Then she grew ashamed at the implications of her own father and mother who would stoop so low under the pretence of protecting her because she was a girl.

 

Her mother put a stop to the regular visits to her cousins' house. "Those boys are nothing but trouble; they wouldn't know how to treat a lady!"

But Artanis missed her cousins. They always treated her like an equal. They didn't see her as a wilting flower that needed a man. They challenged her and talked to her like she was one of them. To her utter surprise, even through the awkward periods of a growing into a teenager, they did nothing but treat her with respect.

 

Whatever the rumours...that Curufinwë got a girl pregnant while still in high school and only then they married, or that Maitimo does not like girls at all... or that his relations with their cousin Finno are more than meets the eye...Even then! Or that Carnistir published under his father name an outrageous or rather pornographic novel and several pamphlets on sexual freedom, or that he's an activist with Antiestablishmentarianist views…

They shared this with her without any shame; they never doubted her intelligence or sugar coated anything. She was let in on big secrets, she was worthy of speaking her mind and she was taken seriously.

 

In truth, Maitimo is a homosexual, despite their grandfather's attempts to present women to him at grand balls and dinners and despite the fact that he dances with all of them and keeps them company all through the night. Curufinwë , in his teens, did get a girl pregnant but he said he married her not because of the pregnancy but because he really loved her (whatever that may mean to him) and Carnistir, although he's got this halo of bad rumors about him, is one of the most open-minded and progressive individuals she's ever met. And despite all his written erotic literature, he remained adamantly a virgin - as a form of protest, he says.

 

She was still not sure about Maitimo and Findekano. Somehow, her mind refused to linger on that subject for too long. They are her cousins! Secretly, she found the thought confusingly arousing. She had no idea why.

The untamed mind got back to reviewing the events of the day, to her annoyance.

 

How could I know they'll ask me to strip all my clothes and put on that insubstantial paper thin thing over my body? And at the end, what they said...I will never forget. "You should be grateful I pencilled you in when your mother asked so nicely. The other doctor's a man."

So what if he's a man? Will he not be able to look me in the eye after prodding my vagina?

 

Isn't enough that I am cut out from my fencing classes, when I was doing so well, well enough for a championship? Is not enough that now I am forbidden from the paddock unless I'm there to groom the horses?

 

To her utter horror, as she made her way back to her home, Artanis knew that to this society, that little piece of skin about which her mother kept talking about in hushed tones in the privacy of her room, represented a woman's worth.  What skewed interpretation of a woman's worth! Were her parents insane?

 

They were. Artanis felt it in her bones. There was something wrong with the society, Maitimo usually commented. To them, he was an abomination which needed to be cured. It appeared she was no different. Not socially acceptable. Forced to give up her love of physicality, her passion to be free in the wilderness, riding on her horse. For that flimsy piece of skin, her hymen- proof of her virginity, Artanis has been grounded to lessons in etiquette and more cooking and sewing.

 

She was told that her body was shameful in its natural state and that except for the colour of her hair, she should make herself pretty. Her mother and aunt Findis gifted her with perfume, eye shadow and mascara. Findis, the mother of three girls, insisted on showing her how to make a perfect cat eye in black eyeliner.

She did look nice, she cannot lie about that. The effect was instant and surprising. "But why do I need to do that?" To her it was bothersome, almost half an hour wasted on something that she needed to remove with greasy, chemically scented cream before bed.

"So you'll look cute, to get that serious look off of your face- you scare the boys away, dear."

Artanis scoffed at the memory. Is this why her mother had named her Nerwen? Good job, mother.

 

*

Her brothers don't understand what it's like. Her mother has tea with her aunts, well, all except Nerdanel who refuses politely every time she is invited by saying that she works on a big project. Artanis reads her novels and the scientific papers. Findarato borrows her his harp and sometimes she goes to Ñolofinwë’s house to check the novelties they added to their library which rivals any in Tirion. Her cousin Irissë is being grounded for two weeks in her room. Rarely, when the chances of getting caught are small, she phones her cousin, Maitimo and calls him endearingly Russandol.

 

She runs from school and takes a cab to the woods of Tirion where Fëanáro and his family live. Seven sons. She sometimes thinks of Nerdanel and feels a kinship to her unlike any other. She wishes to talk to her. How does she do it? Why does she do it?

 

When did Nerdanel become women's magazine gossip? 

"She used to be an artist."

"Oh, no, dear, not an artist, a sculptress."

"Again she refused my invitation. She said she needed to catch up on her projects."

"What projects, dear? Isn't having seven sons enough hassle for her?"

"Well, she has her job cut out for her; she's a beast of a woman. Have you seen her? Dresses like a man, drinks like a man...I don't know what Fëanáro  could see in her!"

"She's a baby machine, darling. That what he sees in her!"

 

And they laughed. Thinking back on the gossip she heard one day in a diner, Artanis knows she needs to talk to her. She needs to know. She has so many questions that she cannot sleep. Her high school ball is nearing and she'll have to ditch her plaid skirt and white shirt for a dress. She's nervous and doesn't know whether her fears are the result of an overactive mind -like she read in that book on psychoanalysis- or if it's just normal.

 

She reaches the house, rings the doorbell and she waits. There is a loud noise coming from inside so she pushes it to open. They're screaming at each other. Nerdanel and Fëanáro. Her cousins are huddled in a corner, the twins crying and bawling at each other. Nerdanel sees her and stops with the marble vase in her hand.

Fëanáro is red with rage. They calm down enough to look at her, intruding into something she shouldn't have seen.

 

"I can't go on like this, Fëanáro," Nerdanel whispers, her eyes begging for understanding from him. He understands, of course, he does but there is always a but these days.

"I need to work. I need peace and quiet."

"Of course," he answers her and then turns to look better at Artanis. "Welcome, my niece! I didn't know you'll be coming!"

It just sounds fake to Artanis' ears. He looks tired and has a mad look about him, crumpled clothes and tangled hair.

"I'm sorry that you had to witness that, child. Nerdanel's been a little stressed lately.

 

It was the straw that broke the camel's back because Nerdanel threw the marble vase she had been obviously working on and shattered the window.

 

Maitimo looked at his father strangely, as if he realised something. Makalaurë turned his back in shame, his face ashen, his mother’s gaze too strong for him. Tyelkormo and Carnistir were not there, only Curufinwë, the fifth, descended the stairs with a wailing baby in his arms, pale-faced and irritated.

 

"Are you satisfied now?" He shouted at no one in particular but they all knew it was directed at his father. The baby was inconsolable and Maitimo gestured to Artanis to follow him up the stairs. A dishevelled young woman in a bathrobe emerged from one of the rooms and cradled the baby to her chest.

"Hush now," Curufinwe said to the baby but his voice was gruff.

 

*

 

 

She spent the night there sharing a room with Makalaurë who was obviously not going to sleep anytime sooner. His music assignments grew more and more cumbersome, ever since he won the composition grand prize last year.

That night, Nerdanel left, accompanied by the twins. After midnight, Carnistir returned, creating a ruckus in the whole house.

In the morning, when she knocked on Maitimo's door, to say goodbye. She got no answer.

"He's not here, in case you're wondering." It was Carnistir who spoke, eyes red and fists bruised. "He's gone to Findekano's. They're sleeping together. Fucking. It's time you knew, actually." He scoffs and she doesn't blush because his remark is not intended to wound her in any way. Nor is his language. It's for the sake of precision.

"It's cruel how father insists he stays in here with us as if to protect him from the world. Russo doesn't need protecting." Artanis sees the unbearable sadness in her cousin's eyes.

 "He's just tired of being denied what he truly is. Father admits it is not something you can cure but he still denies the truth. Grandfather fears he'll lose political support if his nephew goes public. He denies it. He says it’s something that needs treatment. I hate him. I fucking hate him and I wish he were dead so that my father can be free of him."

 

No, Carnistir is not gossiping. He just tells her what she needs to know- according to my cousins. The relationship between him and Findekano does not surprise me as much as the relationship between Tyelko and Irissë.

 

He said her uncle Nolofinwë caught them together in bed. Fucking. Again, he uses it for the sake of precision. He fell into a rage and attacked his brother.

To him, it was paramount that they kept it as hushed as possible. Tyelko ran away from home with his cousin and lover, while Maitimo endured shaming and sessions with a psychiatrist at his grandfather's insistence Fëanáro opposed it and lashed out.

What really bothered him was that Findekano was exempted from any of it.

"We'll have to move to Formenos. Father works on a project there. I can write there, I can exchange my ideas there."

Artanis was shaken by the news, all her previous rage and confusion forgotten.

Then, as an afterthought.

"I don't think mother will come back. He's crossed a line and none of us know what it was."

"Do you think it was her fault?" She asked.

"Her fault? No. Father has his issues, he just keeps those secret from us." He takes her by the hand, leading him to his room. "I will never get married. The mere idea sounds too much like slavery for me." His eyes are strange as he hands her a stack of books.

"Here, my novels. Tirion is secretly mad about them. Don’t let your mother catch you with these!"

 

She prepares to leave the house but before she could exit the gates and go to her cab, her eyes catch Fëanáro’s.

She can see he's been crying and the thought is preposterous- he’s such a pillar of strength that the mere idea seems impossible. He dusts his apron before she can come any closer and rakes a hand through his hair.

"Artanis," he smiles. "I feel ashamed about last night. I am an awful husband," he tries to smile at her but it gets twisted by an inner pain that she cannot fathom.

"I hated my father for marrying another. I hated him. I hated Indis and her children," he says breathlessly as way of confession. "I never hated your cousins or your brothers or you, for the matter." Fëanáro exhales and motions to the cab to drive nearer.

"Artanis, please forgive me."

She's confused.

"What for?"

"For wanting to cut a lock of your hair. For not bursting into your father's house and taking you and your brothers on adventures with my sons. For not being a proper uncle. Even Findekano visits more than you have, despite his father's interdiction, despite the corruption that my sons bring to this world."

"You knew?"

"I always knew. I just wish anyone could know and not have a problem with it. You should have come by more often, just to keep up with the recent developments."

"It's the same with my hair." She looks down to her blue plaid skirt, her still bruised legs-this time from the razor, her calf-length socks and her used tennis shoes. "And my virginity." She swallows hard trying not to fall silent now, swamped by shame. "And the fact that I am not allowed to do anymore fencing and run and ride anymore. Or even come to your dishonored house. I am not allowed to continue those things that  make me... Artanis."

He scrunches his face and soon the realization downs on him. He looks at her as if seeing her for real this time. Like he finally understands something.

"You're of Noldorin descent, Artanis, you’re an activist, not a supplicant. Our people used to be more intelligent than that. They crossed a frozen land to get here and died to reach a better place where they could be free but now I realize that they brought cages with them."

She stares at him trying to will the blood out of her cheeks. He looks in the distance as if trying to grasp at something, something, something that eludes him.

 "I created one myself, because it was convenient, I pretended my selfishness was for art's sake. It was a convenient lie. It hurt her so… and I regret it."

 

*

When she finished high school, Artanis thought that the world, as she knew it, was going to end. Her Feanorian cousins rebelled, her uncle’s political ideas clashed with the rest of Tirion. His radical remarks upset the small minded and ruffled their bigoted feathers. It was then that she decided she wanted to study psychology. While her parents approved of her ambition and her talent for deep thinking, they didn't waste a moment to remind her that they were worried about her future. Why would they?

 

Arafinwë's fear was that she would make a mistake- a thing he would usually start talking about while having dinner. Her brothers would simply ditch the plates into the sink and leave to their room, except for Findarato who would reply to their father that he was too old-fashioned. Whenever her mother would catch her alone, she would remind her that she needed to find someone. A man was a priority, not her studies. And Artanis would become more and more confused.

 

Against all odds, she was admitted to Tirion University but soon enough; a change of plans was made.

 

Her uncle left for the West, far to the Middle-Earth. Nolofinwë and her cousins followed them, more out of spite. Artanis and her brothers followed them and crossed the ice, out of curiosity. They all left Tirion behind.

It was the bravest thing she ever did. She wouldn't wait for someone to deem her worthy of the front line. She was her own person, she was far ahead of the front line, and she preferred it that way even though that segregated her from the people she thought she knew.

They didn't stop until they reached the humble cities of Ennor.

Her mother cried. She cried and her father struggled to contain her. Between tears, she whispered that she was sorry.

 

*

She has little to no news about her cousins. Her brothers are doing well and have long since forgotten to keep an eye on her.

Gradually, she gave up the tennis shoes and the plaid skirts which didn't fit her anymore. She cut her hair because it got damaged by the long, tenuous travel. It was an inconvenience. Living alone, there was no one to remind her that she had to strip her hair from her body and twist herself into a pretzel, to fit an impossible dress or mutilate her body with a tight corset, until her lungs could not contain more than a mouthful of air. She ditched her bra and styled her hair boyishly.

After a year of wandering along with her brothers, she separated and settled in Doriath to continue her studies under the famous Melian who put the basis to the first gender studies class in the West.

She did not search for him but they have found each other not on the dance floor and not where other girls were hunting for a husband. He called her Galadriel, in that awkward language of his. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> not convinced?  
> they aren't called the [sexist fifties/ sixties](https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/17-ridiculously-sexist-vintage-ads?utm_term=.nbRQrdWr9e#.woedgp4gqr) for no reason...


End file.
